Cruel And Unusual

The Supreme Court has blocked the execution of Clarence Hill, a Florida man convicted of a 1982 killing of a police officer, to consider his appeal over the method used to carry out the punishment: "[T]he court wants to consider if the chemicals used in the execution cause pain - thus violating a Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment."

OK, that's all fine and good, but this paragraph of the article caught my eye:

Hill had been strapped to a gurney and intra-venous lines were running into his arms late on Tuesday night, his lawyer said, when Justice Anthony Kennedy issued a temporary stay.

Let me see if I got this straight. This guy had been on Death Row for a couple decades or so, and finally -- after all these years -- they strap him in, run lines into his arms, and are about to inject the chemicals into his blood stream . . . and then the execution is halted.

How is that not cruel and unusual?